This holiday lesson may be used in multiple ways, but it was created to get students up and moving. Setting up stations, or a “scoot,” works best for me.
• Arrange editing stations around the room. You can use all eight or select the strategies your students need most.
• Provide one or more thesaurus, especially at the word choice and verbs stations.
• Give each student or group the narrative text.
• The number of improvements made at each station is up to you. Here’s where you might differentiate; for example, three changes for advanced writers and two for average.
• Put the students in groups. Assign each group to a station.
• Rotate groups through stations. (They’ll probably need five to ten minutes per station.)